M-Ticketing solution

Reservation and purchasing of cinema tickets over the mobile phone

Customer: Central European Operator

The challenge

HERMES SoftLab, a local mobile operator and a cinema complex identified the opportunity and advantages of implementing a mobile ticketing solution to improve customer service and take advantage of mobile phones as a distribution channel. The service would enable mobile subscribers to browse through available events (cinema, concerts), make a seat reservation, securely pay for the ticket, and use the mobile phone to store vouchers of reservations and purchased tickets.

The solution

HERMES SoftLab designed and implemented a solution that is based on a Web Services ecosystem that establishes B2B links between the mobile operator and the event provider (cinema/movie theater) to provide purchasing and reservation service. The solution interconnects the following components/systems:

• Cinema/event ticketing system.

• Voice Portal. Based on voice server (VoiceXML interpreter) and speech recognizer for Slovenian language developed by HERMES SoftLab.

• Ticketing broker. The broker, based on web services, is responsible for requesting and gathering information from ticket providers (ticketing system) request charge to billing system and generate SMS notification.

• Mobile operator’s billing systems.

• E-voucher system (third party). Issues an electronic voucher that identifies a reservation or purchase.

• WAP front end. The WAP interface will enable users to browse through the events, access seat availability and purchase the ticket.

Key benefits

After a few months of the launch of the service, up to 15% of cinema tickets (of a large multi-cinema complex) are being purchased through the mobile ticketing service. It has proven to be a differentiator for the operator and for the cinema complex has been a way to more efficiently and conveniently distribute tickets while reducing the sales cost.